


Sunday Dinner

by rosa_himmelblau



Category: Wiseguy
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 03:00:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8515963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: There are some people you really don't want to come to dinner.





	

Roger didn't pay much attention when Vinnie said he wanted to go home to see his poor, sick mother--he'd been saying it right along, so it was easy to ignore. He'd say that, Mel would say something insulting, Suzie would whine and purr and get Vinnie all hot and bothered, and somehow the urge to visit Mama would suddenly disappear. Maybe it was just a ploy he'd come up with to get her to rub against him; whatever it was, it seemed to work for him and except for having to listen to Suzie whine, Roger didn't care one way or the other.  
  
Mel made his usual remarks but Suzie's came out of the blue. "I want to go with you."  
  
"What?" Vinnie sounded like he'd been poleaxed.  
  
_**This**_ _was worthy of some notice,_ Roger thought.  
  
"To visit your mother. I want to go with you. I want to meet her."  
  
"I don't think you'd--"  
  
She'd been sitting on the arm of Vinnie's chair; when he started to object, she slid down so she was sitting mostly in his lap. _Good ploy; it's not easy to argue with no blood in your brain.  
_  
"I hope you're not ashamed of me." She purred like a pouty kitten. It made most guys melt at her feet; it made Roger want to smack her quiet. _Don't know why, just a difference in taste, I guess.  
_  
"It's not a question of being ashamed of you; it's just that--"  
  
_Yeah, right, who wouldn't want to take Suzie-Q home to meet mom?  
_  
"Then what is it?"  
  
"She's very old-fashioned. She wouldn't understand . . . ."  
  
"What wouldn't she understand?" She leaned against him.  
  
"And what she would understand, she wouldn't approve of."  
  
Susan stood up and moved away from him. "Then introduce me as your boss. She can't disapprove of that, can she? Mel and I can both come--"  
  
Roger could read the look on Vinnie's face as clearly as a headline: _Dear God, no!  
_  
"That would be all right, wouldn't it?"  
  
"Susan--" Mel was objecting and Roger should have been too, but it was too funny, so he just stayed quiet and enjoyed Vinnie's predicament.  
  
"We could even bring dinner," Susan went on, not ignoring Mel--she'd moved over to him and had her hand on his shoulder.  
  
"No--" Vinnie seemed stuck on that one word.  
  
"No, what?"  
  
"If you bring dinner, it'll insult her. In her house, she cooks." He was trying to play up the point that she didn't know the rules of this game, but she wasn't listening. She had that look again, the one she'd been getting a lot lately--Mommy and Daddy and the house with the white picket fence. Mel wanted to rule the world and Suzie wanted to play house. Mel had a better shot.  
  
Susan smiled as if he'd agreed to her plan. "All right, if it won't be too much trouble, cooking for so many people."  
  
"Susan, my mother knows that some parts of my job aren't strictly legal. She knows that, but she doesn't approve of it. It's one thing if I go to see her; we can both pretend she doesn't know and everything's fine. But if I bring my bosses with me, she can't pretend. You understand." _Pleading won't do you any good, Vinnie; there's no pleading with the self-absorbed. Why should Mama Terranova's fantasy take precedence over Suzie's? Especially when Suzie can afford to pay for hers?  
_  
"No," she said, "I don't understand. I never had a mother. I want to meet yours."  
  
_No matter how bad he wants to, he can't say it: "My mother wouldn't have you in her house, your brother's a fruitcake who might have my whole family knocked off on a whim, I wish I'd told you_ _ **I**_ _was an orphan."_ _He wants to, but he can't._ "I don't think it's a good idea, but I'll talk to her. She's not well; she has a heart condition and it might be too much for her." _Lame, Vince, very lame,_ Roger thought. _Doesn't even warrant a response._ "I'll see what I can do."  
  
And right there he lost the war.

+|+|+|+

Mel immediately decided he needed an entire genealogy of the Terranova family, to search for anything Vinnie might have "forgotten to mention." Susan went shopping for a new outfit and came back looking like a cross between a porn star and Little Bo Peep. Mel demanded Roger figure out how to secure "the entire perimeter" of Brooklyn.  
  
"I wanna thank you for this," Roger told Vinnie later. "Like I didn't have enough trouble humoring him **before,** now I gotta figure out a way to keep him safe from an entire **borough** of New York!"  
  
"You think I want this?" Vinnie snapped back. "You think I **want** him meeting my family? How would you like to explain loony Mel to **your** family?"  
  
**"You're** the one who had to play Prince Charming to Suzie's damsel-in-distress. You'll get my sympathy when you get some brains.

+|+|+|+

It took a while to arrange everything, and every day it was the same thing. It was like watching a chess game between a grand master and a kid who was president of his high school chess club.  
  
Vinnie would start with, "Mel, I don't think this is a good idea." It was his opening gambit every day, and every day Mel shot him down.  
  
"What's the problem? Roger says he's got the security angle taken care of."  
  
Vinnie shot Roger a look and Roger looked back all innocent. "No offense, but I don't think it's possible for anybody to make this as secure as it should be."  
  
"You don't want us to meet your family, do you, Vince?" Craz _y, Vinnie, not stupid, and never forget it._ "Why is that, Vince?"  
  
"It isn't that I don't want you to meet my family, it's just—" _grasping at straws now, Buckwheat._ "—I don't see what the big deal is. It's just my mother's house—"  
  
"Yeah, and it sounds about as interesting as watching ice melt. But my sister wants it, and what my sister wants, she gets—you understand? And if you think I'm going to let her go without me--off someplace, who knows where, who knows what might happen--you might never bring her back—"  
  
_Sounded crazy 'til you realized he wasn't talking as an overprotective brother, but as a jealous lover. Let her go to Vinnie's without Mel there to ridicule the whole thing, to keep her from taking it seriously? He was right; she might never come back.  
_  
"There's nothing to discuss, Vince, unless you're hiding something, or maybe you don't think we're good enough to meet your mom and brother—"  
  
"I never said that!"  
  
"Then what's the problem?"  
  
"No problem, Mel. I just hope you aren't bored."  
  
Mel smiled as he delivered his checkmate. "Bored by experiencing the sweet, familial love and welcome of your family? Vince, how could we be?"

+|+|+|+

"Will your Uncle Mike be there?" Susan asked one evening at dinner, clearly catching Vinnie flat-footed.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I know you're close." She smiled at him.  
  
"Uh--I don't know. He travels."  
  
"I'd really like to meet him—he sounded so nice on the phone when I called."  
  
"You called him? Why?" Vince asked. He was starting to sound as paranoid as Mel.  
  
"After you were shot," Susan explained blithely. "Maybe we could go to his hardware store."  
  
"Yeah, Vince, that sounds like a great idea," Roger put in, winning himself a nasty look.  
  
"Why does a guy who works in a hardware store need to travel?" Mel demanded, a question that seemed to annoy Vinnie.  
  
"I didn't say he **needed** to travel, I said he travels. For pleasure. Nothing long or expensive, just short trips, but I'm never sure when he'll be home."  
  
Mel was staring at Vince. It was so hard to understand, how these peons could manage to be so contrary. "Well, it seems to me you could **make** sure, for this."  
  
"I'll see what I can do."  
  
"And why is it that I'm having such trouble finding out anything about this Uncle Mike of yours? I've got pictures of your whole family, but Uncle Mike—"  
  
"Pictures of my family? What for?"  
  
"I like to know who I'm dealing with. You never know when someone might slip a ringer in on you. But I can't find anything on Mike Terranova. Why is that?"  
  
"That's my fault, Mel," Roger said quietly. They both looked at him in surprise. "I got that picture first, but I must have set it aside. I'll get it for you." Mel had moved on to something else, but Vinnie was still watching him speculatively. _Got you wondering now, huh, Vince?  
_  
“Say, Vinnie, what exactly was it that happened to your Uncle Mike?” Roger asked, just to see if he could get that look— _oh, yeah, there it is, deer-in-the-headlights.  
_  
“Happened to him? Nothing I know about.”  
  
“Really? I thought I read that he’d been in a car accident or something—you mean he was born without any legs?”  
  
_**Bambi**_ _in the headlights, as unprotected as it gets. So, they didn’t tell you your uncle’s a paraplegic. God, what are these bureaucrats coming to, can’t even brief a guy properly?  
_  
“That happened so long ago, I never even think about it,” Vinnie covered, keeping his voice carefully modulated. “It **was** a car accident, as a matter of fact.”  
  
Roger nodded, acting satisfied with this response, which he was. _Answered all my questions; thanks a lot._

+|+|+|+

And finally the great day came. Susan, dressed for—Roger wasn’t sure what, Mel looking like he’d been dressed by Susan, for the firing squad, Vinnie—he’d pulled so far into himself Roger thought he looked like a turtle. _Come out, come out, wherever you are.  
_  
They took the limo, of course, even though Roger thought it was too conspicuous and Vinnie was embarrassed by it. Mel wanted to show up these middle-class nobodies and Susan thought they’d be impressed and like her more. And the driver’d been freshly washed and pressed for the occasion as well. This culture-clash was going to hit like the Hindenburg. Roger could hardly wait.  
  
As they neared the house, Roger noted the nondescript sedan with the nondescript man behind the wheel, casually pretending to read the paper. _Some things never change—and even those that do, don’t change much. He's one of a million they keep in the federal building, filed under Boring. Vinnie’s Herb, looking forward to a fun-filled afternoon of listening to other people eat, and maybe Mel throwing a temper-tantrum or two.  
_  
They pulled up in front of the nice, middle-class house and the chauffeur got out and opened the door for them. Roger got out first, surveyed the area briefly. If there was danger, he didn’t see it, and if he didn’t see it, there wasn’t any. Then Vinnie, who just looked at the house miserably, then Susan, smiling, a little girl going home for the first time, then Mel, still waiting for that firing squad.  
  
Introductions all around; Mama Terranova sounding very old-world and gracious, Uncle Mike warm and friendly and maybe a little too hearty. Father Pete wasn’t there yet; there’d been some kind of emergency at his church. _Nice touch.  
_  
“Mrs. Terranova, I’m so glad to meet you,” Susan said, taking both of the other woman’s hands in hers in some gesture she surely must have gotten out of some movie. “Vinnie talks about you all the time.”  
  
Mama’s smile was gracious, nothing more. “We’re pleased to have you in our home.”  
  
_Yeah, like you’d be pleased to find out the place is infested with vipers.  
_  
“He talks about you, too, Mr. Terranova,” Susan said to Uncle Mike, who smiled at her in a much better show of friendliness.  
  
“Maybe we better see what we can do to get him to quit talking so much,” Uncle Mike said, _a little joke, let’s all laugh politely now._ Mel wasn’t even pretending to pay attention; he was looking around the living room like a sullen little boy trying to find something wrong with the perfect present.  
  
“Why don’t we all sit down?” Vinnie suggested, and they did, all but Mel, who prowled the room, looking at things.  
  
“I’ll get the antipasto,” Mrs. Terranova said, and Susan, of course, offered to help. _Never got a chance to play house when you was growing up; here’s your big break, Suzie.  
  
_ “So, what exactly do you do, Mr. Terranova?” Sounded like a perfectly meaningless question, but Mel was undoubtedly going somewhere with it.  
  
“I own a hardware store.” _Nice and friendly; this guy does nice and friendly real good.  
_  
“Is there much money in that?”  
  
Uncle Mike laughed. “Enough to keep beer in my refrigerator and pay for what I lose at the track. Can’t ask for much more than that.”  
  
“Vinnie didn’t seem to know to much about your accident.”  
  
“Well, he wouldn’t, he was just a kid when it happened. And I wasn’t really around too much before that. I moved around a lot; didn’t settle back here 'til after the accident. Then, when I got the insurance settlement, I bought a the hardware store.” _You’re better than Vinnie here; if Mel asked about the alligator attack, you’d go with that nice and easy, wouldn’t you?  
_  
“Something you always wanted to do, sell nails?” Mel couldn’t have asked the question more offensively, but Uncle Mike was determined not to take offense.  
  
“No, it wasn’t a lifelong ambition or anything, but I’d worked there part-time when I was in high school and it just seemed like the right thing to do.”  
  
Susan returned, carrying a tray of something that smelled wonderful. “They’re crostini di fegatini.” She set them down on the coffee table, sat on the sofa. “Mel, come over and try one of these, they’re delicious.”  
  
That got Mel's attention fast. He hurried to the hors d'oeuvres and picked one up cautiously. "Did you **eat** one of these?" he demanded, panic-stricken, like a parent talking to a child holding an empty bottle of pills. "Are you insane?"  
  
"Mel, they're chicken livers on toast with cheese on top; they won't hurt you," Vinnie said, putting one in his mouth. His you're-trying-my-patience tone usually worked, but now Mel ignored him, pulling the appetizer apart, searching it, letting the pieces fall to the floor.  
  
"Appetizers? Why would we need something to make us hungry? Or didn't your mother know when we were coming for dinner? What's going on here?"  
  
"Mel, stop it," Susan said anxiously, bending down to pick up the mangled crostini.  
  
"Susan, get up from there! We are not here to clean up these people's messes! Why are we having appetizers?"  
  
Uncle Mike started explaining about Italian customs while Mel muttered about tasteless poisons. Roger resisted the urge to suggest Mel ask for a tasteful poison, nothing too ostentatious.  
  
"Vincenzo," Mama Terranova said from the doorway, "come in here and help me with this."  
  
He looked relieved to go; Roger couldn't blame him. Roger moved closer to the door, listening to Vinnie talking to his mother.  
  
"—bad enough the last time, at least he knew how to behave in a proper home—"  
  
"Ma, please, just—don't say anything—it's part of my job—"  
  
"—something terribly wrong with that man!"  
  
_No shit, Mama.  
_  
"I know, OK? There's nothing I can do, we've just got to get through this—"  
  
A sound outside caught Roger's attention; he turned and saw Pete Terranova coming into the house, trepidation written all over him.  
  
"Pete, you're just in time for your mom's hors d'oeuvres," Uncle Mike, trying to lead him through this wonderful new world of undercover work. Pete Terranova had none of his brother's skill; he sounded positively wooden greeting Mel and Susan.  
  
"How was the big emergency?" Mel asked, not shaking Pete's offered hand. Susan took it warmly. "Save anyone's soul?"  
  
"Father Terranova, I'm so happy to meet you, Vinnie talks about you all the time."  
  
_I don't remember Vinnie ever mentioning his brother, the priest,_ Roger thought. _But who knows what he and Suzie talk about when they're alone; maybe yammering on about your family is part of Italian foreplay.  
_  
"Is Vinnie here?" Pete asked, looking around.  
  
"He's in the kitchen with your mother, helping her with a jar or something," Roger said. Pete looked at him as if trying to determine his dangerousness and Roger smiled disarmingly. "Maybe you'll want to give her a hand, too." _This whole thing's playing like a hostage situation, only nobody's willing to cop to the fact. Say one thing, mean another, and whatever you do, don't piss off the hare-brained-hair-trigger over there.  
_  
"I'll see what I can do," Pete said, and moved past Roger into the kitchen. He spoke quietly to their mother, to his brother—Roger couldn't make out the words, but he could easily tell the difference in tone.  
  
"Why is everyone in the kitchen?" Mel wanted to know. "What are they planning?"  
  
"Sounds to me like they're planning dinner," Roger said, but this didn't appease Mel.  
  
"I want everybody out of the kitchen right now! Roger, get them out there! Anybody who won't come out, I want you to shoot them!"  
  
There was a moment of dark silence, then Vinnie emerged from the kitchen, all masculine Italian anger. "What the hell's going on out here? You're in my mother's house, threatening my family? If you're so unhappy here, why don't you just go back to your ivory tower?"  
  
It worked of course; it always did. Mel stopped in his metaphorical tracks and looked at Vinnie. "When will we be eating?" he asked.  
  
"In just a minute. Why don't you go figure out which is the safest chair to sit in for dinner?" Rude was good too; for some reason, rude worked pretty well on Mel. He gave Vinnie an unreadable look, chose a seat for himself, ordered Susan to come and sit next to him; she did, holding his hand.  
  
"You'll have to excuse my brother, he's not used to this kind of socializing," Susan explained to Uncle Mike.  
  
"Do not apologize to these people for me," Mel said. "We have nothing to apologize for."  
  
The meal was brought forth, narrated by Vinnie: penne with scungilli alla marinara sauce, and eggplant caponata.  
  
"Translation," Mel demanded, eying the food suspiciously. "What exactly is in this, and don't tell me it's a special, secret, family recipe."  
  
"It's sea snails in tomato sauce over penne pasta," Father Pete explained, pouring wine into their glasses.  
  
"Snails?" Mel demanded.  
  
"Mel, I've seen you eat escargot; what's the problem?" Vinnie snapped.  
  
"What about the spices, what kind of spices are in it?"  
  
"I dunno—garlic, an' onion, oregano . . . ."  
  
Vinnie looked at his mother who supplied, stiffly, "Basil, bay leaf, hot red peppers, celery, tomatoes, white wine, and olive oil."  
  
"Very highly spiced; could have anything in it," Mel dismissed. "What about this?" he asked, indicating the second dish on the table, one Pete had brought out.  
  
"That is caponatina—fried eggplants with celery, onion, capers, olives and tomatoes."  
  
"And it's supposed to be cold?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Mel, how could it be poisoned, if everyone's eating it?" Susan asked.  
  
"They've had years to build up an immunity. This stuff—" he stuck his finger in the caponatina, tasted it, "—has a bittersweet taste. Perfect for throwing off suspicion."  
  
"It is bittersweet because of pears, sugar, and white wine vinegar," Mama Terranova told him, but he wasn't listening.  
  
"Roger—" _He's weighing my potential as a taste-tester against my worth as a bodyguard. Obviously I can't be both; if the food's poisoned, there'd be no one left to protect him._ "I'll just have water," he said finally. Vinnie gave him a look, got up, and went to the kitchen. He came back with a glass of tap water. _"Bon appetit."_  
  
Mel laughed, picking up the glass. "The most subtle method of all—there's probably more poisons in this glass than in all the Borgia's household!"  
_  
He's off on roll again,_ Roger thought, beginning to eat.  
  
"Father, I'd like to pose a moral question for you, a question of ethics."  
  
"All right," Pete agreed warily.  
  
"Say you have a man who has nothing, is nothing, and this man is taken in, treated well, given a job and paid well to do it, given the best clothes and food and accommodations, who is treated like family, trusted with preserving the peace, with securing the lives of his employers, and what if that man abuses that trust, what if he uses it to seduce my sister? What would you think of a man like that—a viper, untrustworthy to the bone? Would you sit down at the table with him and eat dinner with his family? Don't shush, me Suzie, I want to hear Father Terranova's opinion!"  
  
"Who're you talking about, Mel?" Roger asked in spite of himself. He would have sworn the tension couldn't have gotten any worse, but he was wrong.  
  
"Mel, please," Susan implored, standing, moving behind him, stroking his face. "Please don't do this; we could have such a nice dinner." She plucked a snail from the plate, crouched in front of him, and brought it close to his lips. "Please? For me?"  
  
_Give it up, Suze—all your happily-ever-after dreams are going right out the window with Mama's disapproving look.  
_  
"I want this man and his sister out of my house," Carlotta said coldly. "I will not have this kind of disgusting—"  
  
"Disgusting? You try to poison us and you have the nerve to call my sister disgusting?" Roger watched as Mel's spring was wound tighter and tighter. _One more turn ought to do it—  
_  
"I don't care if you're Vincenzo's boss, I want you out of my house **now!"** Pete and Uncle Mike were trying to calm her, but that wasn't going to happen, not until Mel was gone.  
  
Mel picked up his plate and threw it against the wall. "What was in it, huh? That's why you want us to leave, you don't want to have to deal with our bodies—poison us, send us on our way, when it happens we'll be miles away and you **think** you'll be in the clear!" _That's it, he's lost it._ "Well, I'm not going alone—Roger, take them out, all of them—"  
  
Vinnie's panicked eyes were the last thing Roger was consciously aware of. He had his gun out in a second, a bullet in Vinnie's brain in another. Uncle Mike was next; his gun was out, but he hadn't had a chance to aim it. Vinnie's Herb would be coming through the door in a second, but Roger still had time to take out Mama and Pete and move back out of sight before the door crashed open. Roger waited, watched Susan crying in Mel's arms, heard the nondescript man from the nondescript car demand to know what was going on, waited, heard him say Vinnie's name, call Uncle Mike Dan—that was it. Roger stepped out of the kitchen while the man was checking Uncle Mike for a pulse, shot once. That left only Mel and Susan.  
  
Susan lifted her head and gave him a teary look. "Roger—"  
  
Roger pulled the trigger, watched Mel grasp at her falling body, look at him in disbelief. He waited, wanting it to sink in; then he pulled the trigger again.

+|+|+|+

_Herb doesn't get out in the daytime enough,_ Roger thought, watching him skulk up to Terranova's house. "You look like a fucking burglar," he snarled, opening the door as soon as Herb reached it. "Where's that intuitive stealth you're so proud of?"  
  
"Dammit, Lococco, what's going on? What's the big emergency? Do you realize how dangerous it is for me to be here?"  
  
"Going on, Herb? Nothing's going on now. I've taken care of everything, and just wanted to tie up a loose end or two." In a second he had the cord he'd liberated from the Venetian blinds looped around Herb's neck. "You sonovabitch." He pulled it tight until Herb lost consciousness, then he dragged him down the hall to one of the bedrooms. Herb's unconsciousness made it easier for Roger to tie him down securely and gag him. Once that was done, Roger slapped him hard across the face until he came to struggling and furious. "You're my last loose end, Herb. After I've taken care of you, I can disappear." He patted Herb's cheek. "Be right back."  
  
He'd only planned on getting the butcher knife he needed, but what the hell, he was hungry. He filled a plate with food, grabbed an unopened bottle of the wine, and returned to the bedroom.  
  
Herb was yelling into his gag, but Roger ignored him, set down his food. He shoved the knife into Herb's stomach, twisted, aiming for pain as much as deadliness. Herb screamed into his gag, but the sound didn't carry.  
  
Roger picked up the plate full of food. "This, Herb, is scungilli alla marinara, which I have on good authority is sea snails in a heavily spiced tomato sauce spooned over penne pasta. It's a little lukewarm now, but I didn't get a chance to eat before. It's a Sicilian standard—very spicy, very tasty. You could hide a million poisons in here, and no one would ever know the difference. And," he held up the bottle, "an Etna rosato. Wonderful—goes with everything.  
  
"I've taken care of my replacement, not to mention his minions—that's what really did it for me, Herb, seeing how carefully you had planned it all behind my back. And I got rid of your golden-egg-laying geese, too, though since I've helped myself to more than a few ova, I've got quite a nice retirement package. I dispatched the rest of them quickly, but you—you deserve something a little special. And we need a little quality time.  
  
"You never should have told me if you couldn't handle me you'd replace me, Herb. I've been waiting ever since for you to make your move. That's when I stopped trusting you completely. I didn't know what you'd pull, but I knew it would be sneaky—but I gotta give you credit, a Company man pretending to be a fed pretending to be a hired gun? That's bizarre beyond all my expectations of you. I wouldn't have seen the seam if we'd stayed inside the border, but we went out, didn't we Herb? And feds don't do that. That part was stupid, Herb, and I would have had to have been stupid to buy it! You got Terranova to cozy up to me so at the right moment he could take me out and take my place. Well, your replacement's gone ashes to ashes and now your minutes are numbered."  
  
Herb was trying to say something.  
  
"What, you think there's something you could say that would change my mind? There's seven dead people in the other room; the time for changing my mind has past. It is, however, time for dessert. You'll excuse me for a minute, won't you, Herb?"  
  
Herb seemed to have passed out when Roger got back. _All that blood, it's no wonder._ He slapped him awake "For dessert we have cassata alla siciliana, a famous Sicilian cheesecake. It used to only be made by the nuns and served only for Easter, but nowadays it's served year 'round. But Mama Terranova didn't go to as much trouble as it sounds—I noticed the wrapper in the trash. She bought this beauty at a bakery and was passing it off as her own." He cut into the cake, took a bite. "Delicious, Herb. Sorry I can't share.  
  
"It could take a couple of days for you to die from what I just did to you, but I just don't have that much time. Some neighbor'll come calling long before that, and you know how important it is to clean house. Five a.m.'s really the best I can do for you." Herb's eyes had glazed over, but Roger could still get his attention with a good smack. "I'm gonna catch myself a nap, then you and the house and the rest of the occupants are going up in smoke. I'll miss you, Herb, but you know how it is: scorched earth; leave no survivors."

+|+|+|+

Roger lay on the beach, his eyes shaded from the sun's glare. He was hungry, but he wasn't sure what he wanted. He'd tried most of the local dishes. The truth was, what he really wanted was more of that Sicilian cheesecake, but he kind of doubted he'd be able to find it on this little island. "Damn shame; that was good stuff."

+|+|+|+  
  
---  
  
**Author's Note:**

> This story, weird as it is, holds a very special place in my heart. I remember virtually ever detail about writing it, & lucky you, I'm going to share them.
> 
> It was inspired by a conversation with Pat, about Sonny's having Sunday dinner at Vinnie's mother's house, & how no matter how much Carlotta might hate it, at least Sonny would know how to behave, which was certainly more than you could say for, say, Mel—
> 
> And my brain exploded (in a good way). We had to go downtown, Pat had to see somebody downtown (I have no idea who or why, but I'm guessing it had to do with her SSI). It was a very cold day, late March or early April, & it was freezing-raining, & I waited in the car while Pat went . . . to do whatever official thing she was doing. I waited in the car because we were parked at a meter & we weren't sure how long this official thing was going to take. (Parking downtown is a bitch, & Pat getting around on her own, while possible back then, wasn't easy, so parking close to where she was going (which meant on the street) was essential.) So I waited & paid attention to my watch in case I needed to put more money in the meter.
> 
> And I wrote. I wrote the whole story except for the specific reason Roger flips, & the specific menu. I wrote in a blinding flash (I didn't even have to get out & feed the meter, so you see how fast it was). It was nearly all there when Pat came back to the car, & I think I wrote for another 10 minutes or so while we drove home. Then I read it to Pat. It was filled with things like, "need food here," because I didn't have the menu yet, & of course the specific references to the food (Vinnie telling Mel he's seen him eat escargot) weren't there. But still, there it was.
> 
> That evening I was IMing with Ninon & she gave me the menu. A lot of the descriptions are hers, too. Somewhere along the way I figured out why Roger did it.
> 
> I have only one regret regarding this story, & I've thought about it & thought about it, & I can't find a way to fix it, & that is, I would have loved it if that cheesecake Roger fell in love with was poisoned.
> 
> (Oh, & this story is my anti-death-warning-label argument.)


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